Garcia tops USF Pro 2000’s post-season test, Etter joins series for 2025

Photo: Gavin Baker Photography

Reigning USF2000 champion Max Garcia was fastest in USF Pro 2000’s post-season test on Indianapolis Motor Speedway’s road course last weekend.

There were three sessions on Saturday and three on Sunday, with most drivers setting their personal best laptimes in the first session on day two.

Garcia topped four of the six sessions, including the very first on Saturday. The Pabst Racing driver set a 1m22.0801s to lead team-mate Jacob Douglas by 0.1104 seconds, with Velocity Racing Development’s Noah Ping only 0.084s further back in third place.

Joseph Loake (Turn 3 Motorsport), Sam Corry (Pabst) and Max Taylor (VRD) were also all within 0.3s of Garcia’s pace.

Laptimes were slower in session two, as Aston Martin Autosport BRDC Award winner Joseph Loake led the way with a 1m22.6076s. He edged Taylor and Garcia to top spot by 0.0072s and 0.0842s respectively, and Pabst’s Sam Corry was only 0.1965s in fourth. Nine tenths of a second covered the top 16, with all 24 drivers present heading out on track.

A new benchmark was set in session three, and it was close at the top once more. Garcia improved to 1m22.0219s, and Loake set a 1m22.1627s to be second fastest. His team-mate Alessandro de Tullio was 0.3s behind in third, and Douglas was half a second off in fourth.

The only sub-1m22s lap of the test was achieved on Sunday morning by Garcia, who had a more comfortable advantage over his opposition. His 1m21.8215s late on put him 0.3945s clear of Taylor, while Loake, de Tullio and Douglas were all 0.4s behind. Loake and Douglas were non-improvers, as was Ping who never beat his session one best.

Nobody went any faster in the final two sessions, with Garcia on top again in session five – setting a 1m22.3009s to go over half a second faster than Douglas and Loake – while a smaller group of cars contested session six and a 1m22.5510s from Loake put him 0.3469s ahead of de Tullio.

“The car was on point right away,” said Garcia. “It felt good learning the car at this obviously heavy-braking track. That’s one of the big things. Last year, you had to hit the pedal at 1,100 brake psi and this year it is 1,700, so a big jump and it is pretty cool to learn it here.”

Down in 19th place overall was Carson Etter, who ahead of the test was announced as joining Exclusive Autosport’s line-up for 2025. He began racing in off-road competition before switching to single-seaters. The 20-year-old was 12th in USF Juniors in 2023, and 16th in USF2000 this year with three top-10 finishes.

Test results